"A [preacher] who does not love art, poetry, music and nature can be dangerous. Blindness and deafness toward the beautiful are not incidental; they are necessarily reflected in his [preaching]." — BXVI

13 June 2010

It's raining vocations. . .

"In the end, God is sending us these vocations because the Dominican charism is urgently needed in the Church today. I would stand behind every word of my "Dominican moment" presentation at the provincial assembly in 1999. Our tradition is constituted by a unique convergence of qualities:

1) optimism about the rationality and fundamental goodness of the natural order;

2) an abiding certitude that divine grace and mercy are sheer gifts, unmerited and otherwise unattainable;

3) a healthy realism about the peril of the human condition apart from this grace and mercy;

4) a determination to maintain a God's-eye-view of everything that exists and everything that happens;

5) an appreciation of the inner intelligibility of everything that God has revealed about himself and us;

6) a wholly admirable resistance to all purely moralistic accounts of the Catholic faith;

7) an unfailing devotion to the Eucharist and the Passion, combined with an unshakable confidence in the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary;

8) a zealous willingness to preach and teach about all this, in season and out, because we are convinced that the world is dying to hear it and dying from not hearing it;

9) and, internally, a commitment to liturgical prayer, to study for the sake of the salvation of souls, and to a capitular mode of governance* in a common life consecrated to God by poverty, chastity and obedience.

This is a powerful combination, and the Church really does need us to be true to it now more than ever."

* Dominican priories and provinces are governed by elected Chapters of friars who then elect local and provincial leadership and set policy. All elected offices in the Order--from Master of the Order to the local prior--have term-limits.